The story behind mdvju

It started with a shelf

In August 2026 I was planning an overhead shelf for my workshop. The task sat in my to-do app, with a link to the note where I’d worked out the measurements. Standing there with a tape measure in one hand, I wanted to open that one note on my phone. Not start a whole notes app, not wait for it to sync, not risk changing anything by accident. Just read it.

So I wrote down the idea in one line: an app that does one thing, show my notes. No editing, no sync, no plugins. Open a note, follow a link, put the phone away.

That one line is still the whole plan. mdvju isn’t trying to become a big Markdown app or an editor. It’s a reader, made so you can read your notes without distractions.

The book behind it

A big inspiration was MAKE by Pieter Levels, the indie maker’s handbook. Its steps read like a description of how mdvju came to be:

• Get the idea from a problem in your own life. Mine was a shelf and a note I couldn’t quickly read on my phone.
• Build with the tools you have. I did, and the tools now include AI agents (more on that below).
• Launch early, and grow by word of mouth, not with ads.
• Ask people for money, honestly. Don’t sell their data, don’t fill the app with ads, don’t water it down. That’s why mdvju is a one-time purchase.
• Automate what you do again and again, so a one-person business stays a one-person business.

Who makes it

I’m Michał, an independent developer in Łódź, Poland. I’m a father of three, and I like building things with my own hands, whether that’s code, a garden bed, a wooden shelf or a fence.

mdvju is a tool I use every day. Any money it makes will, in time, buy me what I’d most like more of: time, and fun with my kids.

How it’s built

I decide what mdvju does and how it should feel. A team of AI agents does a lot of the building, and every change is reviewed and tested before it reaches you, by me and by a separate reviewer agent whose whole job is to find what’s wrong.

I’m not hiding this. You’ll see it anyway when I publish the self-hosted backend. I agree with Linus Torvalds, who looks after the Linux kernel:

“AI is a tool, just like other tools we use. And it’s clearly a useful one.”

Linus Torvalds, on the Linux kernel mailing list, July 2026

A tool doesn’t make an app good or bad. Care does: deciding what to leave out, testing on real notes, and fixing what breaks.

What I believe

• You should own your data and your tools. mdvju reads your notes where they already are. It doesn’t copy them, sync them or keep them anywhere of mine. No account, no tracking.
• Privacy isn’t a feature. It’s the starting point. Your notes never leave your phone.
• Honest work deserves fair pay. That’s why mdvju costs money: once, like a book. A subscription only makes sense for a service someone runs for you every day, so you’ll only ever see one from me for the hosted service, if and when it exists.
• Open source where I can. If there were a way to make the whole app open source and still earn honest money from it, I would. I don’t think my app is important enough to interest an open-source foundation, and that’s fine. What I can open, I will: the self-hosted backend will be published on GitHub once it’s tested and packaged.

What’s next

iPhone first. Android and new features later, at my own pace. If you’d like to know when they’re ready, leave your email and I’ll write when there’s news. Nothing else.

Thanks for reading this far. If mdvju earns a place on your phone, that means a lot to me. And if something doesn’t work for you, write to me at support@mdvju.app. I read every message myself.

Michał